TALKING POINT
Managing Brands Post
“Handshake”
By Boniface Ngahu
In Low Cash Situation Apply
More Imagination Than
Money
There is a business saying that when you
have little cash and you need a spiced
campaign you can choose to apply more
imagination than money. This can apply to
start-up businesses or new products that
haven’t generated enough cash to blow in
a major campaign. It can also be a business
philosophy for any business since money
will never be enough.
Ambush marketing is a tactical way
of gaining some benefits from a major
event without being a sponsor. For
instance a brand that created activations
in Russia 2018 to benefit from the world
cup audience without necessarily being
a sponsor to the event can be said to
have employed ambush marketing. Such
activations can be in close proximity to
the event locations or on the way to such
event. This will give you audience which
money can’t buy and benefit your brand in
many unintended ways.
Ambush Marketing refers to use of
advertising or other marketing approaches
that would give the impression that you
are an official sponsor of an event while
you are not. One of the best examples
was in the 80s when Kodak advertised
aggressively during the Olympics which
was viewed as giving an indication that
they were an official sponsor while they
were not. Their competitor Fuji was
actually the sponsor of the event at that
time. While this kind of marketing is
considered illegal it is hard to prove the
illegality in most cases.
As for the Kenyan Rugby 7’s team, when dealing
with a government body and national interest
sabotage may not have been the best way to
protest. Still, ambush marketing offers one of
the options to avoid pitfalls of sponsorships so
far as it is done in a legitimate manner that may
not be of significant concern to the ambushed
entity.
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Still, the mainstreaming of social media
has given brands opportunity to leverage
on events that they have nothing to do
with. So far as an event is trending you
can easily relate your brand with it as seen
with Githeri Man, Bro Ochola’s Cloud 9
Whatsapp message mishap or any other
trending event.
With the increasing relevance of
millennials as a target market, traditional
approaches may not be so relevant for this
segment and ambush marketing becomes
an avenue for getting their eyeballs in
social media.
Make It Kenya And Rugby 7
Sponsorship
Recently, Rugby Kenya Team covered
their ‘Make It Kenya’ T-Shirt labels as
they were playing in the Paris leg of
the HSBC Rugby Sevens World Series.
They had a problem with the sponsor in
that the promised money had not been
wired to their accounts. They decided to
protest against the delayed payment in
a gentleman way by covering the label
‘Make It Kenya’ as they played.
What they forgot is that they already
carried the name Kenya with them and
the sponsor only wanted to push it a
bit further with a deliberate message.
The reason we are highlighting this is to